6- Persuasion and Attitude Change Flashcards
Attitude Change?
Any significant modification of an individual’s attitude. In the persuasion process this involves the communicator, the communication, the medium used and the characteristics of the audience. Attitude change can also occur by inducing someone to perform an act that runs counter to an existing attitude
Cognitive Dissonance?
state of psychological tension produced by simultaneously having two opposing cognitions. People are motivated to reduce the tension, often by changing or rejecting one of the cognitions. Festinger proposed that we seek harmony in our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours and try to reduce tension from inconsistency among these elements
Persuasive Communication?
message intended to change an attitude and related behaviours of an audience
Hovland?
Studied three general variables involved in persuasion:
- the communicator, or the source
- the communication, or message
- the audience
Four steps in the persuasion process: attentions, comprehension, acceptance and retention
Third Person Effect?
Most people think that they are less influenced than others by advertisements
Sleeper Effect?
the impact of a persuasive message can increase over time when a discounting cue, such as an invalid source, can no longer be recalled
Hovland and Colleagues?
less self esteem more susceptible
McGuire (1968)?
the actual relationship between persuasibility and self-esteem is curvilinear, it follows an inverted U-curve
Disconfirmation Bias?
The tendency to notice, refute and regard as weak, arguments that contradict our prior beliefs
Elaboration-Likelihood model?
When people attend to a message carefully, they usually use a central route to process it; otherwise they use a peripheral route
Heuristic-Systematic Model?
Chaiken’s model of attitude change: when people attend to a message carefully they use systematic processing, otherwise they process information by using heuristics, or ‘mental shortcuts’
Compliance?
Superficial, public and transitory change in behaviour and expressed attitudes in response to requests, coercion or group pressure
Ingratiation?
Strategic attempt to get someone to like you in order to obtain compliance with a request
Reciprocity Principle?
An attempt to gain compliance by first doing someone a favour, or to mutual aggression or to mutual attraction
Foot in the Door Tactic?
assumption that if someone agrees to a small request, they will be more willing to comply with a later large request
Door in the Face Tactic?
The focal request is preceded by a larger request that is bound to be refused
Low-Ball Tactic?
a person who agrees to a request still feels committed after finding that there are hidden costs
Action Research?
The simultaneous activities of undertaking social science research, involving participants in the process and addressing a social problem
Cognitive Consistency Theories?
A group of attitude theories stressing that people try to maintain internal consistency, order and agreement among their various cognitions
Selective Exposure Hypothesis?
People tend to avoid potentially dissonant information
Effort Justification?
A special case of cognitive dissonance: inconsistency is experienced when a person makes a considerable effort to achieve a modest goal
Induced Compliance?
A special case of cognitive dissonance: inconsistency is experienced when a person is persuaded to behave in a way that is contrary to an attitude
Post-Decisional Conflict?
The dissonance associated with behaving in a counter-attitudinal way. Dissonance can be reduced by bringing the attitude into line with the behaviour
Representativeness Heuristic?
A cognitive short-cut in which instances are assigned to categories or types based on overall similarity or resemblance to the category
Self Affirmation Theory?
The theory that people reduce the impact of threat to their self-concept by focusing on and affirming their competence in some other area
Self Perception Theory?
Bem’s idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self-attributions: for example, we infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour
Reactance?
Brehm’s theory that people try to protect their freedom to act. When they perceive that this freedom has been curtailed, they will act to regain it
Forewarning?
Advance knowledge that one is to be the target of a persuasion attempt. Forewarning often produces resistance to persuasion
Inoculation?
A way of making people resistant to persuasion. By providing them with a diluted counter- argument, they can build up effective refutations to a later, stronger argument
McGuire’s two kinds of defence?
- Supportive defence - based on attitude bolstering, resistance could be strengthened by providing additional arguments that back up the original beliefs
- Inoculation defence - built around counter-arguments and may be more effective, person learns what the opposition’s arguments are and then hears them demolished
